I just reviewed a solid analysis by Benjamin Cowen about where we are really in the Bitcoin cycle, and there are interesting things that go against the typical market noise.

Benjamin Cowen's main point is straightforward: the four-year cycle is not dead. Yes, it feels different this time, but the numbers speak. The major peaks occurred in Q4 2013, Q4 2017, Q4 2021, and now Q4 2025. What changed is not the timing, but the psychology behind it. While in previous cycles the highs came with uncontrolled retail euphoria, this one arrived amid apathy. That distinction matters because it explains why we didn't see the usual rotation into risky altcoins after Bitcoin's peak.

In 2021, when Bitcoin surged, everyone was rushing into meme coins and speculative projects. This time? Much calmer. Benjamin Cowen compared it to 2019, another period when Bitcoin reached its maximum without triggering a massive speculative boom in altcoins. The key difference: weak retail participation.

Now, what really moves the market according to Cowen isn't cryptocurrency narratives but pure macroeconomics. Tightened liquidity and the late business cycle mean capital moved into relatively safer assets within crypto. Bitcoin held up better than most altcoins, period. He also noted something interesting: in both 2019 and now, Bitcoin reached its peak about two months before the Federal Reserve finished its quantitative tightening. It’s not that liquidity is lacking, it’s that it’s not improving fast enough.

What Benjamin Cowen expects is a slow, grinding decline, not a sudden collapse. Still, he argues that we are following the patterns of previous intermediate years quite closely. Bear markets are deceptive; they spend more time trending upward than downward, trapping both optimists and pessimists.

Regarding daily technical analysis, Cowen is brutally honest: short-term price action is almost a random walk. It cannot be predicted. What does have value is focusing on broader cycles and momentum. His advice is to step back from the noise, rely less on emotional narratives, and look at the long-term structure. Narratives follow price, not the other way around. ETF launches, headlines, all that dominates real-time conversation, but markets priced in those themes long before.

The sharpest part of the analysis is when Cowen addresses the real state of cryptocurrencies. Too much capital in this cycle flowed into pure speculation, especially meme coins, rather than products with real utility. His critique is clear: the future of crypto shouldn't be meme coins. The industry focused too much on how to pump more money into the market instead of how to make cryptocurrencies genuinely better.

For crypto to achieve mass adoption, it needs real use cases. Ordinary people still don't rely on cryptocurrencies the way they rely on the Internet, smartphones, or AI tools. That must change.

Among the sectors that could help, Benjamin Cowen highlights AI. Imagine an economy driven by autonomous agents transacting, paying humans for tasks, and using blockchain for quick settlement. That would be real utility. He also mentioned stablecoins as a credible example of existing blockchain utility.

Cowen’s conclusion is cautiously optimistic. Many speculative narratives will fail, many altcoins will disappear, but that cleansing effect could leave the asset class healthier. His final principle is simple but powerful: bears sound smart, but bulls make money.